My Visit With the Silenced, Shunned, and Canceled of the Academy

What will the societal consequences be if people suppress unpopular views, and likewise abandon whole areas of inquiry?

Photo by Darya Tryfanava on Unsplash

My Visit With the Silenced, Shunned, and Canceled of the Academy

We hear a lot about the illiberalism that prevails on college campuses and increasingly pervades the "real world"—where Wrongthink is not only castigated and censored, but even criminalized. However, it's another thing entirely to witness it up close and personal.

I just had occasion to spend time among the silenced, shunned, and canceled of the academy.

What they said—or in some cases, conveyed through their silence—was profoundly disturbing.

The impression they left about the state of our disproportionately influential elite academic institutions, and therefore what is to come in the disproportionately influential economic, cultural, and political institutions where their students will matriculate, is perhaps even more profoundly disturbing.

In a follow-up to my recent RealClearInvestigations report on the elevation of ESG/DEI at Wharton, I wrote about the trepidations of those with whom I spoke, and the implications of their fears, in Newsweek.